


Sickly

by Blaithin



Category: Avengers (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Disordered Eating, Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18034946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blaithin/pseuds/Blaithin
Summary: Steve offered up a fading picture. “You were sick like me.”A small, sickly looking boy stared at the camera. Tony's face was pinched with anxiety, eyes huge in his exhausted, too-thin face. The oversized hospital robe he was wearing was stiff with starch, hanging off his protruding collarbones and pooling at his elbows. Behind him, Maria was stood dressed in her Sunday best. Next to Tony’s diminished pallidity, she was radiant. Her eyes were bright with barely suppressed excitement.Tony could still feel the phantom touch of her hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard, her fingernails biting into his skin in warning. He shivered and shook his head, stomach churning.“No, I wasn’t sick like you.”





	1. Chapter 1

 

Tony hadn’t been in his father’s study since the night his parents had died. He had stumbled drunkenly, grief-stricken, through the manor, hoping he might storm into the study and his father would be bent over his desk, eyes flashing at the interruption.

The only things Tony had found were memories and loneliness and he’d locked the door and walked away, promising himself that he wouldn’t come back unless he had reason to.

Tony glanced over at Steve’s perfect, blonde profile. He couldn’t have envisioned this being his reason.

“You sure about this?” Steve asked, “You don’t have to.”

He was polite but Tony could hear the want in his voice, the desperation to find something familiar. Tony remembered the emptiness, the nothing he had found in this room after Howard’s death and felt a stab of concern. This could end up being an exercise in cruelty and Tony and Steve had spent too long being unknowingly cruel to each other. Tony didn’t want to hurt him again.

He smiled uneasily at Steve, “It’s fine. I just don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t know how much he kept.”

Steve smiled back, his hand coming to rest on Tony’s shoulder. Steve’s hand was big enough to make Tony feel small, fragile in his grasp and Tony shivered at the contact, nerve ending lighting up.

“I know. I’d still like to see.”

Tony nodded and unlocked the door. The air that met them was stale, heavy with dust. Particles danced in the thin, shafts of sunlight that stole into the room from between the heavy curtains. Tony found himself holding his breath. A part of him was still expecting Howard to turn around in his chair and shout at Tony for disturbing him.

“Where should I start?” Steve asked softly and Tony jumped, forgetting for a moment the man was next to him.

“Oh, the cabinet at the back, that’s where he kept all the stuff from the war.” Tony gestured to the thick imposing oak dresser at the far side of the room. Dust had settled in a fine layer and the dark wood looked ashen.

Steve smiled and made his way over, carefully but quickly starting his search. Tony wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, and wasn’t sure what Howard had kept. Howard would never have allowed a child’s sticky fingers near his prized keepsakes. The only reason Tony had any idea what was in the cabinet was because he had fumbled through it as a teenager looking for his father’s whiskey.

Steve was thumbing gently through a pile of photographs, smiling a strange fond, hurt smile. He hovered over one photo, thumb tracing the image and when he placed it down, Tony saw a familiar flash of Peggy’s serious, sharp-edged smile.

Not wanting to intrude, Tony made himself busy. He pulled open the curtains and cracked open the window, breathing deeply as the first gust of sweet summer air broke into the study. He wasn’t sure if it was the dust or just the room itself that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.

When Tony had been very young, he had been barred from his father’s study and most other places his father frequented. His father saw no use for a baby or a toddler and had made sure Tony was neither seen nor heard. Tony’s world had been his mother and Jarvis. He had been squirreled away upstairs and transported through the back corridors of the house. He had learnt early it was best to keep away from his father, to be a shadow in his own home.

After he had made his first circuit board, things had changed. Howard’s interest had been piqued and he would summon Tony intermittently into his study as if he was a prized dog to be examined. Tony remembered standing outside the study in his tiny, itchy suits, listening to the scratch of Howard’s pen and waiting for his father to call him in. How he’d hated those visits. Howard would shoot a series of rapid questions at him, his fierce eyes pinning Tony to the carpet and Tony would mumble back, shrinking into himself as he realised his answers were unsatisfactory, that he was disappointing.

It had been Jarvis who had prepared him for those visits, who had taken him away afterwards to soothe him and provide reassurance. His mother had grown jealous and cold at the encroaching interference of Howard and would ignore the summons, taking Tony off to ice cream parlours and doctors’ appointments instead. She would ignore Tony afterward, looking at Tony as if he had betrayed her somehow. The first time his parents had ever argued it had been about those visits. All their subsequent arguments had been him too: about who got to have him.

Tony glanced down at the picture on his father’s desk, rubbing the film of dust from the glass frame. His mother’s beautiful face stared blankly at him. She was a slender, wisp of a woman; her eyebrows curled up slightly giving her a permeant expression of worry. Next to Howard’s imposing bulk, she looked fragile, a glass person balancing in high heels. Tony remembered the bottles of prescription drugs he had emptied from her room after she had died and the stab of guilt he’d felt as he had stared at the names of the drugs, trying to pinpoint what each pill was for. Trying to guess which ones she really needed.

Across the room, Steve made a little noise of surprise. The sound was a gunshot in the silent room and Tony jumped, turning to look at him quickly.

Steve offered up a small, fading picture. “You were sick like me.”

A small, sickly looking boy stared at the camera. His face was pinched with anxiety, eyes huge in his exhausted, too-thin face. The oversized hospital robe he was wearing was stiff with starch, hanging off his protruding collarbones and pooling at his elbows. Behind him, Maria was stood, dressed in her Sunday best. Next to Tony’s diminished pallidity, she was radiant. Her eyes were bright with barely suppressed excitement.

Tony could still feel the phantom touch of her hand on his shoulder squeezing hard, her fingernails biting into his skin in warning. He shivered and shook his head, stomach churning.

“No, I wasn’t sick like you.”

Steve blinked. Tony could see his curiosity and confusion forming a question, could see the words coming together on Steve’s face.

“We should get food, I’m starving,” Tony said suddenly, moving so his fathers’ desk was between them. “How do you feel about burgers? Nothing more American than burgers? Although I could go for Chinese. What do you fancy, big guy?”

Steve rolled his eyes, “Tony it’s 10 in the morning.” He dropped his hand, the photograph and his questions forgotten momentarily.  

“What’s your point? Do you know how long I’ve been awake? I must be due a meal soon.”

Steve was shaking his head again but his expression was soft, fond. It was easy to convince him to take a break for a couple of hours.

* * *

 

Tony’s first memory was of lying, curled up in his mother’s arms as she sat in his nursery’s rocking chair.

Tony had been born a sickly child and stayed that way. Undersized and thin for his age. At three he could still fit as easily as a toy doll into his mother’s lap. She was humming a tune, each note rising and falling with the movement of the chair. Every now and again she would break out into song, a whisper of Italian that stroked across the top of Tony’s head. “Dormi, Dormi bel Bambin.”

Her hand skimmed across his forehead, pushing up his curls gently. “Oh dear, you’re burning up.” She exclaimed, her voice rising like a musical scale. “Do you feel too hot, tesoro?”

Tony made a sleepy noise in the back of his throat. It was warm in his nursery but he didn’t feel hot, just sleepy and loved. “No.” he said finally, not noticing at first as the rocking chair slowed to a halt.

Tony glanced up, his mother’s lips tightly pressed together. “Mama?” he asked hesitantly.

She smiled and the expression stretched taut across her beautiful face. “Close your eyes, Anthony,” she told and then she was reaching down and wrapping a blanket around him, tucking it tightly around his legs and arms and right up to his chin. Tony wiggled uncomfortable, quickly overheating. Her hands were firm, holding him still, biting hard into the narrow delicate bones of his arms.

“No Tony. You need to stay like that, you’re sick.”

Tony made an unhappy noise but her fingers dug in tighter and her eyes were hard, annoyed as she stared down at him. Tony licked his lips, they were cracking and he was thirsty. There had been no breakfast, no drinks today. He let his head fall back against her chest, and after a moment the slow movement of her rocking chair started up again and his mother’s voice lilted back into a soft, soothing lullaby.

Later that day Tony collapsed and Maria cried as she held his limp body, ordering Jarvis to call the doctor quick.

Tony remembered waking up in his bed, his mother leaning over him, her eyes still full of tears. The covers had been drawn around him tight, heavy winter duvets overlaid with blankets despite the hot summer day and he squirmed uncomfortably.

“You need to stay still, you’re sick, baby.” His mother was running her hands over his face. Pressing down against his glowing cheeks. “The doctor is going to come and take a look at you.”

Tony did feel sick, his stomach clenched hungrily and he was too hot, dizzy with heat. He licked his lips and asked for something to drink. Maria smiled sadly down at him, “After the doctor has visited. Ok, Tesoro?”

Maria was a beautiful crier. He eyes got bigger, more lustrous with tears and the enticing fragility that had drawn Howard and a number of other men to her seemed to get more pronounced. The doctor, when he arrived spent the first 10 minutes cupping her tiny hands in his and reassuring her that he would fix things, that she didn’t need to worry anymore.

Finally, the doctor broke away from Maria and came to Tony. He was a big, white-haired man with crinkling eyes and a moustache that wobbled when he talked. Tony liked him immediately and smiled up at the man as he made a show of groaning and bending down to sit next to him.

“OK, Anthony. Let’s have a look at you.” The doctor looked into his ears and throat, humming soothingly as Tony placidly endured the examination. Finally, he produced a thermometer from his stiff leather bag, waving it gently. Tony opened his mouth knowingly. His mother took his temperature often and he was used to holding the thin glass tube under his tongue and waiting.

“Hmm,” the doctor said, peering at the thermometer. “He has a slight temperature but no other symptoms. I don’t think there is anything to worry about.”

“But he fainted.” Tony’s mother interrupted, her hands clutched together nervously. “You can’t tell me that’s normal.”

The doctor focused his attention on Tony once more, twinkling eyes kind and jovial, “How are you feeling now, Champ? Still dizzy?”

Tony smiled, no one had ever called him champ before. His mother called his Tesoro and Baby and Jarvis called him Tony. He liked Champ, it sounded exciting, grown up. “Hungry.” He said finally.

“Not dizzy?”

Tony shook his head.

The doctor smiled, the movement making his moustache curl in a happy white comma. Maria was almost vibrating behind them, fingers interlocked so tightly her knuckles were bulging and white with blood loss. She made a noise of distress as the doctor packed away his thermometer, snapping his stiff leather bag shut.

“Children can faint quite easily. A day in bed, keep an eye on his temperature and make sure he drinks plenty of fluids. He should be fine.”

“But he’s not fine. He gets sick a lot.” Maria pressed, her worried eyebrows were twisting, her face anxious. She had stepped up close to the doctor, surging into his space and the man looked startled, uncertain in the face of distress and rocked backward, leaning away from her. “He gets fevers, dizzy spells. I can barely get him to eat.”

“Now, now Mrs. Stark.” The doctor said soothingly, patting her hand. Tony could see that unlike before, the reassurance didn’t please his mother. Her smile was pinched, frozen and uncomfortable on her face. “Tony seems like a perfectly healthy young boy. Children get colds all the time and plenty are picky eaters. He will probably grow out of it.”

“But doctor - ”

The white-haired man rested one of his big hands on Maria’s shoulder, his voice for the first time coming sharp, firm. “My medical opinion is that he is fine and you need to stop worrying.”

He nodded his head at her and waved at Tony before he was gone, stepping out of the room with sure, happy footsteps.

Maria swung her gaze to Tony. Her tears were gone and her eyes were bright, fevered. Tony folded himself into the bed, empty stomach clenching.

“Look what you’ve done.” She snapped, arm gesturing to the door. “He’s left now!”

Tony followed her arm and stared dumb and confused. This wasn’t a conversation he knew how to navigate and he felt anxiety clawing at him as he became aware that he had done something wrong but was ignorant as to what his mistake had been.

 “You’re sick Tony!”

“Sorry, Mama.” He whispered, his voice raspy. His eyes were burning as if he wanted to cry but he found that the tears wouldn’t come. “I won’t do it again.”

Maria deflated. She dropped to the floor with a sob, prostrating herself next to his bed as she might start praying to him. Tony flinched at the movement, nervousness churning into worry. He knew that this was his fault, that his mother was upset because of him, for him. He struggled an arm out of the tight covers and reached for her hand. She snatched up his fingers, kissing his hot little fingers with a miserable desperation.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you Tesoro.” She told him, voice catching. “I was just upset. You made the doctor think you weren’t sick and I’m worried for you.”

Tony could feel his own eyes burning again with the threat of tears, his lower lip wobbling. Her panic was infectious, was he sick? “I’m sorry, mama. I didn’t know…”

Maria was smiling gently, her anger at him evaporated as quickly as steam. She was his beloved mother again with her big eyes and the worried upturn in her eyebrows. She stroked his forehead, pushing and pulling the loose curls across his face as he sobbed. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

Tony nodded, gladdened that she understood he hadn’t meant to be naughty.

“Don’t worry. Next time, we’ll make them understand. Next time, they will see you are sick.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Maria could have been a model. Would have been, if she’d had been taller. But there hadn’t been enough food in her house growing up and what little there was went first to her father and then to her brothers.

“Your grandfather was a pig,” She told Tony from behind her big sunglasses, cigarette hanging limp and fuming in her hand.

The cigarette was an almost permanent accessory, but she rarely inhaled instead holding it delicately between her fore and middle finger until it burnt down past the filter. Sometimes when it was just the two of them, she would hold up her hands and spread out her fingers for him, grinning mischievously like she about to perform a magic trick. Tony would get flashes of small, unhealed burn marks hidden on the inside of her knuckles; little bubbling blisters that she would press the flat edge of her fake nails into until they popped and liquid spilled down into her palms. It felt like a secret shared just with him.

“Men are like that, they eat and drink and fuck like animals, unable to control themselves. And I’m left to pick up the scraps.”

Tony nodded, trying to understand. He knew what drinking was, Howard ‘drank’. If his mother always had a cigarette in her hands, his father always had a drink. He had made Tony drink whiskey once, shouting that Tony needed to stop being a sissy and start acting like a man. Tony remembered the feel of Howard’s big hands holding the back of his head, keeping him still as he’d worked his thumb between Tony’s lips and pulling them wide as if Tony was a fish on a line, gasping breathlessly. The whiskey had made Tony gag and he had cried, squirming to get away but his distress had just made Howard angrier. His father had pressed the tumbler into Tony mouth, glass bouncing off his teeth painfully and cutting into the delicate sides of his mouth.

Most of the liquid had ended up down Tony’s shirt, and the rest he’d vomited up minutes later, making a mess of the carpet. Howard had hit him for that. The blow sending him to the floor, squelching in his own vomit. Tony thought his father would hit him again but Maria had been there, scooping him up and shouting at Howard as they fled, tears in her eyes and her hands shaking.

Tony preferred the days when Howard hadn’t noticed him. 

He squirmed uncomfortably in the metal chair, stomach clenching and unclenching. They were sat outside on the lawn. It was bright, sunlight spilling across the grass in watery golden mist but the night-time chill hadn’t receded yet and Tony shivered in his chair. His mother had taken him straight from his bed and he was still in his thin pyjamas and bare feet. His toes ached from the cold and he looked down to see they were white, curling up and bloodless.

“You’re not like that, are you Tesoro?”

Tony looked at his mother blankly, wincing as he realised his attention had wondered. Maria sighed but didn’t scold him, repeating, “You’re not like your grandfather or father are you? You’re not going to eat and eat like an animal?”

Tony shook his head in denial, “No. I’m a good boy mama.”

Maria beamed at him over her sunglasses and Tony smiled back, warm from knowing he had made her happy. Her hand, cigarette still smouldering between her fingers, reached out and cupped his cheek. “I know you are, baby. You’re my perfect little angel.”

They sat together contently, watching as Jarvis slowly made his way towards them. Jarvis was Tony’s favourite person. After his mother. He had a funny accent that made him sound clipped and proper but he always winked at Tony when he saw him and he didn’t mind when Tony followed him around while he did his work.

“Good morning, Mam. Shall I bring breakfast out here for you both?” Jarvis asked. He always stood with his elbow bent at 90 degrees, arm held out horizontally in front of his chest. Tony thought it was a very awkward way of standing.

Maria gave a short, musical laugh. “Oh Jarvis, when will you stop asking? You know I can’t eat this early. Just a pot of coffee please.”

Jarvis nodded shortly and turned to Tony, “And for yourself, Master Antony.”

Tony hesitated. He could feel his mother watching him, her eyes focused on him from behind the big dark lenses of her sunglasses. He shrugged, wriggling in his seat.

“Anthony, answer Mr. Jarvis,” Maria told him softly. Her eyes peered over the edge of her sunglasses and she took a long drag from her cigarette, releasing the smoke slowly in a small perfect plume.

“I don’t want any breakfast,” Tony said finally.

“Are you not hungry?” Jarvis asked insistently, breaking his polite, demure demeanour. He was frowning and Tony could feel himself getting agitated, shifting in his seat as he tried to guess what the right thing to say was.

“Oh, leave him be, Jarvis.” Maria interrupted, waving her hand dismissively, “His stomach is probably feeling a bit unsettled, isn’t that right Anthony?”

Tony nodded.

Maria met Jarvis’ eyes, “He’s got a delicate stomach, I don’t want him being sick because we’re forcing him to eat when he doesn’t feel like it.”

Jarvis nodded stiffly, “Very well. Shall I bring master Anthony something to drink instead?”

“He can share my pot of coffee. You’d like that wouldn’t you Tesoro?”

Tony nodded again, smiling when Jarvis looked at him uncertainly.

“But he’s four years –“

“He’s half Italian, coffee is his birthright. I was drinking it before I was eating solids!”

Jarvis didn’t reply, standing still next to their table. He was frowning again, mouth moving as is he wanted to speak.

Tony could feel his mother’s eyes on him and he smiled up at Jarvis. “I want some coffee, I want to be like Mama.”

Maria laughed, throwing back her head in delight. The watery dawn light caught the highlights in her dark hair making her sparkle. “Two cups, Jarvis.”

Jarvis gave an abrupt bow and strode off. Maria watched him go, her face was tilted towards the house, face pulled into a mask of concentration. Tony’s eyes traced the delicate lines of her profile, the button nose and the fullness of her mouth. Tony wondered if he looked like her, when she was angry she said he looked like Howard but sometimes she would run her fingers across his eyelids and along his nose and jokingly ask him if he had copied her face. Tony would much rather look like his mother than his father.

His stomach made a sudden, unexpected gurgling noise, loud enough to be heard. He could feel himself blushing, embarrassed that he was already like his grandfather and father, his body betraying him.  “Sorry,” Tony mumbled, curling his arm over his torso.

“Don’t worry, I have something to settle your stomach,” Maria told him soothing, reaching in her pocket. She popped open the lid of a little orange pillbox, spilling out two little white pills into her hand and dropping them into Tony’s outstretched palm. “Take your medicine and drink all of your coffee and it will help. OK?”

Tony nodded and when the coffee came, he did as he was told, forcing himself to breathe through his nose to stop himself gagging at the bitter taste. The pills were big, hard to swallow and they got caught in the back of his throat, leaving his mouth powdery and sore. He had to try a couple of time before he managed to get the correct timing of taking the pills in his mouth and gulping down coffee to make everything slid down his throat.

His mother watched him calmly, smiling when he stuck out his empty tongue. “Well done, baby.”

The coffee mug was warm even after the liquid was gone and Tony cupped the mug in his numb fingers, still swallowing compulsively. Even after the pills had gone he could taste them on his tongue, feel them sticking in his throat.

“Here, Tony,” Maria told him after a moment. Her eyes were hidden from view behind her sunglasses and Tony couldn’t read her expression as she pushed her cup across the table to him. Sitting on the saucer was another two white pills.

Tony hesitated, stomach curdling but he took the cup and the pills obediently. It was easier this time to swallow the pills and Tony gulped them and the coffee down quickly, wanting it to be finished. His hands were shaking when he sank back into his seat and he wasn’t feeling so good. His stomach rolled, letting loose another gurgling noise but this time it was quieter, painful and Tony groaned quietly.

 His mother touched his forehead gently with the back of his hand. “Are you ok, Tesoro?”

Tony looked up at her. She had pushed her sunglasses to perch on the top of her head and was leaning across the table, cigarette dropped and forgotten by her feet. Her eyes were intent, bright with concern.

Tony slowly shook his head, waiting for her to inject. “I feel sick.”

* * *

 

Tony couldn’t sleep.

He stared up at the ceiling blindly, his fingers tapping agitatedly against his clothed stomach. He had slept badly ever since he and Steve had opened his father’s study; disrupted sleep giving way to full-blown insomnia. Tony suffered from disturbed sleep patterns fairly often, his brain too busy, too fast to let him rest. But this time, he felt different, more unsettled than usual. The fragments of sleep he had managed were filed with distorted memories, childish monsters:  his mother crying, blood seeping from beneath the door of his father’s study, his bones cracking, piercing through his hands and feet. Tony woke up covered in sweat, gagging as if the injuries, the blood was real. Even when he wasn’t dreaming, he felt wrong, imagining there was something under his skin, sickness churning beneath the surface, threatening to seep out if he let his guard down.

Tony shook his head, brushing off his wild imagination and threw his legs over the side of the bed, knees cracking at the movement. It was breakfast time. The rest of the Avengers would be eating and gossiping in the kitchen and Tony forced himself to go find them, to be with people so he would have to pretend that he didn’t have the urge to claw off his own skin.

“Jesus Stark, what the hell happened to you.”

Tony gave Barton the finger and shuffled his way into the kitchen, automatically making a beeline to the coffee machine. It was a huge, polished red machine. A gift to himself years ago. Tony put his hand on the machine, staring at it blankly.

“I’m making pancakes, do you want some?”

Tony hadn’t even noticed Steve until he spoke to him. He glanced over, snorting at the filly pink apron Steve had tied around his waist. Steve was holding out a spatula, his whole attention on Tony.

“You should have gone for a ‘kiss the chef’ apron,” Tony told him and they grinned at each other, a delicate rose pink blush seeping across the tops of Steve’s cheekbones.

“I guess I should next time,” Steve said softly.

Behind him Clint made a gagging sound, the noise abruptly cutting off as Natasha’s hand clipped him hard around enough the head to knock him off balance. “Be nice.” She scolded.

“Oh, come on, Nat. That shouldn’t be allowed to do that at breakfast, some of us are trying to eat.”

Steve’s blush had spread to a full-face glow, he put his face into his hands for a moment, shoulders moving with embarrassed laughter before turning back to Tony. “Anyway! Pancakes?”

Tony crinkled his nose, “No thanks, too early.”

“Suit yourself.”

Tony turned back to the coffee maker. He pressed his finger to the button, watching as it whirred into life. A vision of his mother, coffee cup in one hand, cigarette in another rose like a spectre before him, uncalled and Tony faltered.

The poison under his skin came alive, churning violently, trying to escape. He could feel his flesh crawling, peeling apart at the seams. Soon it would be obvious, everyone would see the sickness inside him.  A wave of panic swallowed him, and Tony was lost, taken away even as his body stood immobile. He could feel tremors running up and down his arms and sweat breaking out across his forehead.

The coffee machine pinged distantly in the background and Tony remained still, fighting with himself.

“Hey, are you OK? You don’t look so good.” Steve was in his space, his voice breaking through the glass bubble of panic that had engulfed Tony. Tony took one gulping, shaking breathe and turned, just in time to see Steve reaching for him. The back of his hand floated up, reaching to press against Tony’s forehead.

Tony slapped him away, his hand striking Steve’s with enough force to make his own skin sting. He threw himself backward, lips curling into a snarl. His legs moved without his consent until was pressed against the fridge, the bones in his back stinging from how hard he slammed into the chrome door. The tremors in his hands had grown into full blow shakes and he was aware he was all but vibrating, coming apart with his teeth bared. A feral dog cornered.

“Whoo!” Whoo!” Steve called hands out in front of him warily. The rest of the kitchen had gone silent and Tony could feel the other Avengers staring at him, watching. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Don’t touch me!” Tony snapped.

“OK, OK. I’m sorry.” Steve made to take a step forward, stopping when Tony hissed involuntarily.  “I’m just going to stay here. I won’t touch you, just tell me how you are feeling. You don’t look right.”

“I’m not sick!” Tony retorted. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see Bruce and Natasha exchanging looks, Clint slowly sliding out of his seat, flexing one knee back and forth and then the other. They were moving to stop him, to keep him here. Tony jerked to the right, pushing past them. He needed to go, to leave right now.

“Tony!” Steve called but Tony ignored him, retreating.

“What was that? Has he ever done that before?”

“He didn’t even touch his coffee.”

* * *

 

Tony hid like a wounded animal to his lab.

Ever since he had built it, it had been a safe space, a fortress disguised as a workplace. He ordered Jarvis to lock it down as he scrambled inside, curling up into the far corner of the room. Sandwiched between two concrete walls, he let the tremors run their way through him, an earthquake over and under his skin.

Once the panic, the adrenaline had drained away Tony was left with just the embarrassment; the humiliation at having been seen like before the Avengers. He was already the only base-line human on the team, he didn’t need to give anyone any more reasons to believe he was weak.

He dragged his hands over his face, pulling at his skin until it stung. Tony had had panic attacks before; he went through phases of them. Blips of anxiety and humiliation scattered through his time at boarding school and MIT. He had endured them as best he could, waited them out until he was normal again. Tony had never figured out what set him off, he had never wanted to think about them. His father would have just said it was another example of how he was weak and Tony hadn’t wanted to prove his father right by finding out that there was no cause beyond Tony’s own self-created anxiety.

He had thought he was past this.

Tony forced himself upright, the spike and drop of adrenaline had left his muscles weak and shaky and he edged gingerly across the room, limbs aching and unsteady. He was bone tired, exhaustion heavy in every cell of his body. Pain throbbed behind eyes that were suddenly sensitive to the artificial lights.

“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entry.”

Tony winced and steeled himself. There was no point putting it off. “Let him in Jarvis.”

Steve entered the lab slowly, each step carefully decided upon and stolen like a dancer entering a stage. “Hey, Tony.”

Tony waved at him, gesturing him closer. Steve came to a halt before him, close enough that Tony could see the worry bubbling up beneath his neutral expression but far enough away that Tony couldn’t have touched him even if had stretched out his arm.

“Tony, about before –“

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Tony interrupted. “I’m just tired. Don’t know what came over me.”

“Right.”

Tony forced himself to smile, “Can we just forget it ever happened. I feel like an idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah… if you want.” Steve said carefully, “Can I stay here with you for a little bit. I brought your drink.”

He produced a big white mug of coffee, placing it delicately on the table before Tony. Tony nodded, looking at the cup. Steve often brought him coffee and usually, it left a warm, fond glow in Tony’s chest. Today, he felt repulsed.

“Thanks, Steve.”

“It’s no problem. It’s the least I could do, considering this is my fault.”

Tony glanced up in surprise, making a little noise of confusion.

“I surprised you this morning and the other week, I pushed to go into Howard’s office. I’m sorry. It probably brought back some memories.”

“Yeah maybe…” Tony mumbled, wincing as he remembered his reaction to that photography. He had forgotten that had even happened, still couldn’t quite remember why he’d been in the hospital or when the picture had been taken. When he tried to remember, he felt like he wanted to vomit or like he wanted to hide, to run and never stop. His memories scratched at the back of his mind, a monster hiding out of sight in a child’s closet.

Tony pushed his thoughts away, and looked back at Steve with a shrug, “It’s not your fault. I suggested we go and look, I just wanted to make you happy.”

Steve smiled tentatively, his face lighting up like the sun. He stepped closer, a hand reaching for Tony and then falling short, resting just shy of Tony’s own hand on the table. Their fingers were an inch apart, close enough that Tony could feel the heat coming off Steve’s skin.  “You make me happy all the time. God knows what I would have done without you, Shellhead.”

Tony grinned, “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“Well, I don’t want to overdo it.”

“Oh, is it only for special occasions?”

“No, just for when the moment is right.”

Tony smiled. He and Steve had been dancing around each other for a long time, sparks between them waxing and waning as if in time with the movement of some unknown cosmic force. There had always been tension between them, sometimes Tony thought they would tear each other apart they clashed so much. But lately, things had been different, softer. It felt inevitable the way things were changing as if they were slowly falling into each other.

Tony reached for Steve as Steve stood upright. A moment to slow.

“And, I know we don’t talk about it but I know Howard was… difficult as he got older. You probably don’t want to talk about it with me but I'm here if you ever do.”

“Oh,” Tony didn’t know how to respond, he felt off-kilter, surprised by Steve’s mention of his father and his words dried up as he tried to realign himself within the conversation. Tony looked back at the coffee cup, almost able to see his mother’s delicate hand curled around it, pushing it towards him, urging him to drink up to settle his stomach. He wondered what Steve would think if he told him that his mother used to give him coffee when he was four years old.

He glanced up at Steve, the memory on the tip of his tongue. The inky, poison beneath his skin bubbled warningly and Tony turned away.

“I’m ok, but thanks for the offer.”

“Anytime.”

* * *

 

Tony never saw the doctor with the white moustache again. Maria told Tony that he was too old. That he was senile like Tony’s grandfather and unable to remember who he was talking to. That was why he hadn’t recognised that Tony was sick.

It didn’t matter though, there were plenty of other paediatricians who were happy to answer the call from the Stark household. Each new doctor brought his mother excitement. She was a child at Christmas, too full of energy to stand still as she told Tony fervidly that “This is the one. This one would help us.”

Tony knew the doctors were there to help him but he didn’t get excited like his mother. Sometimes, he positively dreaded their visits, not that he ever said anything. Instead, he got used to standing bare before them, cold and shivering as they examined him. He found himself drifting, stepping outside of his own body. He didn’t like the feel of their cold hands on his skin or the way they looked at him, as if he was a pretend human, a mannequin to be manipulated rather than a real boy. Tony’s only comfort was his mother. Maria oversaw all those appointments, watching the doctors eagle-eyed as they listened to Tony’s heart and took his blood and pressed around his abdomen trying to find where it hurt. She would make small talk with them, faltering worriedly as she described Tony’s worsening symptoms. They would pat her hands reassuringly and tell her she was doing everything she could, that she was a great mother.

Inevitably they disappointed her.

They were always too old, too young, too uninformed. They dismissed Maria because she was a woman, because she was Italian, a Catholic. None of them would take Tony’s sickness seriously. Tony found himself watching the same conversation between his mother and the doctors again and again. They would shake their heads and hold out their hands and admit they didn’t know what was wrong with Tony, that all the blood tests had come back clean, that they could nothing wrong with him.

Except there was plenty of things wrong with Tony.

As he grew, an increasing carousel of minor sore throats, stomach issues, migraines, and fevers plagued him. His spells of dizziness abated, but in its place came intermittent stomach issues: nausea, pain, and diarrhoea. Tony wasn’t always sick. Some days he ran and played, forgetting until scolded that he needed to be careful, that he wasn’t well. Other days, his sickness was undeniable.

Tony spent hours on the toilet, clutching his stomach as his bowels cramped painfully and then he started having violent, unexplained vomiting fits. Maria was always there with him. She sit crossed legged in her designed jackets and heels on the cold tiled floors of Tony’s bathroom, rubbing her hands up and down his back, fingers searching and pressing into the knots of his spine as he strained into the toilet. She would hum gently, musical notes dancing over the sounds of his retching.

“Don’t worry, baby.” She would say, smiling soothingly when he cried. “I’m here. I will look after you.”

Then she would give him his pills, ibuprofen, naproxen. An assortment of painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Tony knew the names of drugs, learnt to recognise how sick he was by which one she reached for first. Sometimes he took just one and other times there was a train of them, a little army of pill soldiers that Tony would line up and then swallow, sipping from his mother’s coffee to help them go down. He imagined himself a monster, swallowing the marching army one man at a time. Nothing worked, his stomach problems got worse and he grew as slender as a willow branch, baby fat stripped from his bones until his joints were swollen, protruding from his limbs.

“He’s getting worse. I just can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with him.” Maria told the newest Doctor. Tony was sat limply in his mother’s lap, his face pressed into her chest so he didn’t have to see Doctor Everette’s face. Before the doctor had arrived, his mother had reminded him of his failures previously; he needed to show the doctor exactly how sick he was. “I’m at my wit's end, Jonathan. No one will take me seriously.”

“I believe you, Mrs. Stark –“

“Please, call me Maria.”

“M-Maria,” Everette repeated her name breathlessly. Doctor Everette, was the youngest Doctor Tony had seen. He was barely out of medical school with a face marred by fading acne scars and big hands that hung from slender wrists, like a puppy with oversized paws. Howard had called him a flop and refused to meet with him, but Maria had liked him instantly, her eyes lighting up as he stammered his way through introducing himself.

Tony had learnt to predicate when Doctor Everrette was coming based on what his mother was wearing. On her bad days, as Jarvis called them, she stayed in bed, wailing like a ghost from her bedroom and emerging with greasy hair and dark circles pressed like bruises under her eyes. Other days she was immaculate. A glossy magazine image brought to life in her chic fitted trousers and her pointed white pumps. Those were the days the doctor came - when she was looking especially beautiful.

“Please, Maria don’t worry. I can see Anthony is unwell. We will get to the bottom of this, there are plenty of tests we can try. We just have to pick a starting point.”

Maria let loose a sigh of relief, sending the young doctor a warm, pleased smile that knocked out a strange involuntary noise from him. “I’m so relieved to hear you say that, Jonathan. I think it might be a food allergy, Anthony’s such a picky eater and this all started with stomach aches. Didn’t it, Tesoro?”

Tony nodded obediently and the doctor hummed, pen scratching away as he started to make notes.

“We had lots of food allergies in my family you see, my older brother dropped dead from a nut allergy when we were children – it broke my mother’s heart. Can we test for that?”

“Of course, there are blood tests and we can do a food elimination diet that –“

“What about a scratch test?” Maria interrupted. She was titled forward, almost folding Tony in half as she leaned closer to the doctor.

“Oh, well…”

“Please Jonathan.” She rested a small hand on the doctor’s arm, fingers on the slither of skin peaking past his sleeve cuff. “I really think this could work. A mother just knows sometimes.”

Doctor Everette nodded quickly. “Of course, I’ll come back next week and we can do it here.”

Maria smiled, glowing and perfect as any Hollywood movie star. “I can’t wait.”

A week after the appointment, Tony was laid down face first, naked apart from his underwear. He shivered, bones rippling beneath thin skin as the doctor fussed around him, a cold pen marking little sections on his skin.

“Will it hurt?” Maria asked Doctor Everette over Tony’s head. Her hand was resting on the back of his head, but instead of the usual soothing up and down stroking, her fingers were pressing down too hard, pinching his scalp.  Tony struggled not to squirm away, feeling agitated, claustrophobic, trapped between his mother’s hands and the doctor’s table.

“Only a little. It might feel like a little scratch.” Doctor Everette’s face appeared in Tony’s eyesight. The man bending down to smile at him. “You can be brave, can’t you Tony?”

Tony nodded.

He didn’t understand. Neither Doctor Everette nor his mother had explained what the scratch test was and he jolted like a live wire at the first sharp line that nicked into his back.

“Anthony!” Maria snapped, her hand was heavy on his head now, forcing him still. “Stay still!”

“Mama…”

“It’s for your own good. You want to get better don’t you?”

Tony sniffed, nose running and eyes burning. He nodded, “Sorry.”

“Carry on, Jonathan. Tony will behave himself now.”

Tony sniffed, held still as the doctor made a series of sharp little scratches across the bare skin of his back. It was a small pain, nowhere near as bad as his cramping, upset stomach or the burning in his throat after he threw up but it was also worse somehow, the pain in his back and his mother’s hands holding him down. His chest hurt, locked up tight with a feeling he couldn’t identify. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, falling to the floor beneath the examination table.

The test was over minutes later, leaving the skin across Tony’s back hot, prickling like he’d rubbed stinging nettles across it. He slowly levered himself upright, lilting to one side dizzily. His mother and Doctor Everette didn’t notice him. They were stood close together, laughing. His mother was radiant, glowing as if she was full of sunlight, her eyes dancing. Everette was mesmerised.

Tony pulled his t-shirt on gingerly, his back stung at the touch of the material but he didn’t care, he felt exposed, vulnerable and his shirt offered protection if only a little.

“So, I’ll come back in 48 hours and hopefully we will have some answers.”

Maria was still smiling, calm and content as she walked the doctor to the door. “Thank you so much. It’s so nice to have a doctor who knows what they are doing.”

Everette blushed and stuttered a reply. He didn’t acknowledge Tony before he left. Tony was glad, he realised dimly that he didn’t care much for Doctor Everette.

“Take your t-shirt off.” His mother said as soon as the front door closed. She was watching him, her face was back to pale, marble neutrality, the fading impression of happiness lingering in the glow in her cheeks and the pinch of skin at the corner of her eyes. Her eyes were dark, intent and Tony shivered under their focus, shying away from her attention. “Tesoro, let me see.”

Tony undressed, feeling himself fade away as she examined him. Her heels tapped against the floor, her breath fast, excited on his skin as she leant in closer.

“Only one has come up.” Maria murmured, her nail taping one particular sore patch of skin. She sounded disappointed. Tony flinched at the contact, twisting his head to see the hard, raised hive spreading across his back.

“Does it hurt?” his mother asked softly, her eyes still focused on the lump as Tony tried to meet her gaze. Tony looked away.

“It itches,” Tony replied, his voice was scratchy. It was a struggle to get the words out, they were stuck to the roof of his mouth like toffee.

Maria hummed and slowly pressed the edge of her nail into centre of the hive. The movement was the same as what she did to the blistered on her fingers from her cigarettes. Maria always laughed when she popped her blistered but Tony didn’t know why because it wasn’t funny at all. He whimpered as the pressure increased. Her nail cut into his skin, pain spiderwebbing across his back. 

“Mama, please.” He whispered, her vision blurring. Maria looked up, her irises had been swallowed by her pupils, leaving her eyes strange, polished obsidian. She smiled but her nail was still pressing hard into his skin, it hurt more than the entire scratch test had done.

“Does it hurt?”

* * *

 

Doctor Everette disappeared as quietly and unremarkably as all the doctors before him but his legacy was long-lasting. The test had revealed a multitude of allergies: eggs, lactose, fish, red meat, almonds. His mother was ecstatic at the news, vindicated. Tony spent hours with his mother at various dietarians and nutritionist. He would sit forgotten and bored in the corner of the examination rooms, swinging his legs while his mother chatted amicably to the health professionals, laughing together as she took notes and made plans. Like Doctor Everette they were all captivated by her beauty, by her dedication to Tony and his complex health problems and praised her selflessness, making sure Tony knew how wonderful his mother was. She glowed under their praise, a sunflower feeding off their worship.

At home, Maria ordered Jarvis and the chefs through the changes needed to ensure Tony’s safety. All of Tony’s food had to be specially prepared and stored. Gone were his ice cream trips, the thoughtlessly stolen fruit from the fruit bowels, his fizzy soda. His mother caught one of the maids slipping him a jelly snake one afternoon and had fired the girl on the spot, holding the candy against the crying woman’s face and asking in near hysterics if she was trying to kill Tony. After that, the staff were much more careful. There were locks on the fridge, on the cupboards and all Tony’s food had to be overseen and approved by his mother, provided alongside his medication and new happy coloured vitamin pills.

Tony found himself eating alone, away from his family and Jarvis, picking at beige bowels of oatmeal and chicken that had gone cold waiting for his mother’s approval. There never seemed to be enough to fill him. Tony would take tiny bites in an effort to make it last longer. But it was always gone too quick and he would suck at his cutlery long after the meal was over, trying to make the taste last longer.

Alongside the diet changes came the epi-pens. They were, his mother explained, for Tony to use when he ate something he shouldn’t have. She coached him through their use –  “Blue to the sky, Orange to the thigh” – and watched with dark, loving eyes as Tony brought the pen down hard into his leg, wincing at the stab of the needle and the rush of adrenaline that ran through him. Almost immediately he felt dizzy, nauseated. He had a rabbit heart, straining against his ribcage. Maria soothed him as he lay panting, stroking his sweat-soaked curls. She had pressed the second epi-pen into his slick palm and told him to keep practicing.

None of it mattered though. Tony still kept getting sick.

He grew slowly, a skeleton with skin stretched taut over his protruding bones. He was pale, bloodless, often breathless and dizzy. His hands were clumsy, sometimes going completely numb when he tried to hold his school pen. His stomach problems, which had initially eased off with his dietary changes, came back with a vengeance and Tony grew used to stomach upsets and random violent fits of vomiting.

Soon, his doctors’ appointments started again. With the confidence gained from their trips to the nutritionist and dietitians, Maria looked further afield. Tony would watch her as she sat curled up in her favourite chair in the living room, a yellow-pages balanced on her knee and her index finger sliding down the page, caressing the various names of doctors until she found one she liked.

“This one,” Maria said, pulling Tony into her lap with a wink. Tony folded easily into her embrace, legs curled up beneath him and hands reaching out to help his mother balance the yellow-pages. She shifted him, pressing a faint butterfly kiss into his curls and pointed to a printer name. “What do you think, Tesoro?”

Tony nodded easily. “Yes, mama. Sounds like a good one.”

Maria laughed, one hand coming up to stroke his face, her skin soft and warm against his cheeks. Her eyes were dancing, full of energy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hopefully, I have made Maria a strange, complicated figure of contradictions. Poor Tony.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from. Posting as I write- so updates are likely to be sporadic. I am dyslexic, please let me know if you spot any mistakes.


End file.
